


a rush inside i can't control

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Series: all my favorite conversations [9]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, wolves au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 21:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5681284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Niall seems to stay for as long as he can -- that what it feels like to Harry, like Niall’s only ever there until he can’t be there anymore, until something’s tugging him away and he has to follow. Every day he seems to be able to stay longer, sometimes up to hours at a time before he’s tugged away. Every time he goes, Niall leaves his glasses on the kitchen table like a promise.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>[Or Harry’s rented a cabin by the woods in Mullingar to write his new album and he doesn’t know that both of his muses are Niall.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	a rush inside i can't control

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mozartspiano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mozartspiano/gifts).



> For Sabrina who is an excellent human and provided me with the most wonderful art and music for my big bang last year that I love so much I'm still shouting about it this year.
> 
> This is part of a series of fics (...loosely) based on songs from Made in the AM.

 

Mr. Horan picks him up straight from the Dublin airport, in a car at least as old as Harry is. He’s a round man, his face ruddy and kind. He grips Harry’s hand firmly when Harry finds him.

Harry lingers at the backseat door out of habit as he watches Mr. Horan load up the boot with Harry’s cases and guitar -- at his own insistence, not Harry’s -- but he figures he should scoot up and sit in the front. Mr. Horan isn’t his driver, he’s just doing Harry a favor.

Winter’s creeping into the Irish countryside, snow slowly laying claim to everything living. Winter is present here in the way that it often isn’t in the city -- no one’s really sweeping it up, everyone’s just living in it. No one’s really living in much of anything where Harry’s from -- it’s more like a waypoint to something better somewhere else. Most days it feels like Harry doesn’t live in London, he just sleeps there.

“The kid tells me you’re a singer. Figured it for true when I saw your guitar,” Mr. Horan says, eyes on the road.

Harry looks over to him. He wonders who the kid is, if his cover is blown already. “I sing a bit, yeah.”

“That’s nice.” He nods, like it’s a good hobby, singing, never mind the Brit over Harry’s fireplace at home.

Harry agrees. “It is nice.”

Mr. Horan makes a sound like he approves and sticks to similar bits of small talk. He tells Harry about the town, how they now offer home delivery for groceries even out to the cabin, where to go if he wants a good meal, how he had the kid put in WiFi just before Harry came. Harry’s good at small talk when the company’s right.

He doesn’t let Harry pay for the tolls and drives him into Mullingar and then out of it, down a long drive off a country road, straight up to the front door of the cabin he’d emailed Harry pictures of. It’s solid, looks comfortable, nestled in front of a wood, perfectly secluded. It’s just what Harry has been looking for.

Harry insists he brings his own bags in, which Mr. Horan allows, and he dumps them a bit unceremoniously just across the threshold. He gets the grand tour, though there’s not much to it. It’s a pretty open floor plan, like a studio, really, everything’s pretty visible from the front door, and the only room that’s got a door is the loo.

“There’s a bicycle out back, if you need to get into town. Doesn’t work so good out here in the snow, but we keep the streets clean as we can. Got a kid in town, helps when things get broke. Give him a ring if you can’t get me, will ya?”

“Your kid?”

He shrugs. “Near enough. His number’s by the fridge as well as the rest of the particulars.”

Harry shakes his hand. “Thank you very much, sir.”

“Go on.” He makes an impatient noise. “It’s Bobby.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” Harry corrects. They trade grins and Bobby wishes him his best before he heads back into the cold and Harry’s left truly alone for the first time in as long as he can remember.

Bobby’s got the kitchen stocked up for a few days as a courtesy, Harry picks over his selections greedily. He gets a pot of tea going as he assembles a bowl of fruit for brain power before his first writing session.

It’s all so terribly quiet, and Harry wants to soak it all in, bask in how different it is than being in a city that’s always on. That only ever reminds Harry of how often he needs to be _on_ , but here he’s got peace. That is, of course, when Harry’s phone rings.

“Hiiiii, Nick.”

“Harry Styles, what have you _done_?” Nick sounds hysterical. Harry can just picture him tugging at his hair, pulling his tall quiff even taller with the stress of it.

Harry can’t fight a smile at the sound of his voice. “You know what I’ve done, otherwise you wouldn’t be calling.”

“When I said get away -- I meant to the coast! Or like. The Midlands. I didn’t mean bloody hightail it off to the middle of nowhere Ireland.”

Pap pictures must have hit, then, placing him in Dublin at the very least.

“Mullingar is not the middle of nowhere.” Although Harry isn’t actually sure if this place is still in Mullingar proper, backed up to the wood, some ways away from the village. But the city itself was like any other small town in England, really. “I’ve got WiFi.”

“How the hell did you even find a place like that?” Nick soldiers on, like he hasn’t heard Harry say a thing. “Did you throw a dart at a map of the UK, like, oh, that looks proper dramatic, I'll hide away there?”

Harry doesn’t say. Nick’s not far off. He trails his fingers along the shelf above the fireplace, kicking up a little of the dust there as he circles around a small vase of artificial flowers, a small carved wooden figurine shaped like a wolf.

“Technically I’m not in the UK.”

He stops at a framed picture, the only one Harry’s noticed in the house. Bobby’s in it, red-faced as ever and looking a bit dazed, with his arm around a young man with round, horn-rimmed glasses hiding big blue eyes, a mess of hair with a terrible bleached dye job, a small rocket in his arms with a big ribbon on it. It’s the kid’s grin that stops Harry up -- big and bright and proud. There’s something about the grin.

Nick’s voice goes soft in the silence, bringing Harry back. “Just worried is all, love.”

“I know.” He does know. “London’s just. A lot right now.”

“It’s always going to be a lot. It’s London.”

Harry agrees. London isn’t really the problem though. “Then I’m not enough for London right now.”

“All right. Okay. All right.” Nick sounds like he’s slowly trying to talk himself into it when he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. “Write your album, Harry. Text me daily. All right? Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Harry prepares his tea and eats his bowl of fruit and doesn’t write a damn thing all night. He puts it off to needing to clear his head first. He’s gotta let the quiet settle around him, inside him. He’s got to find some part of himself that still wants to do this, that wants to create, that wants to be vulnerable. It’s what he came here for.

\--

He hears howling sometimes, outside his window. It could be just the one animal, howling into the night because it’s lonely, because it’s calling its pals to him. Harry gets it. He would even be inclined to think it was kind of beautiful if it didn’t fucking keep him up all night.

It’s not as if he’s got neighbors with a dog, not all the way out here, so it must be something in the wood. Maybe it doesn’t like visitors, interlopers. Maybe it’s pissed that Harry’s moved in. It doesn’t exactly have a reason, Harry’s a fine neighbor -- quiet, keeps to himself. The dog should be so lucky.

He spends his days yawning and napping and pretending to write songs and cooking more food than he can eat. And he spends his nights up for hours, strumming his guitar through every song he knows like maybe it’ll drown out the animal howling outside.

On the third night, Harry can’t take it. He throws himself out of bed, jams his feet into his slippers, and wraps his big fluffy duvet around him -- only the best in winter gear, truly -- before he stomps over to the back door. He tugs it open and takes a few steps out onto the back porch. It’s covered enough that he’s not being snowed on, but it does absolutely nothing to stop the cold from slapping Harry across the face.

“ _What_ ,” Harry shouts, his breath curling out ahead of him. “What do you want -- _Fuck_.”

It’s not a dog, it’s a _wolf_ , standing at the edge of the wood. It’s massive, grey and black and brown like it can’t decide what color it should actually be, and it’s staring right at Harry, its blue eyes unflinching.

“ _Fuck_.”

Harry darts quickly back into the cabin backwards, careful not to take his eyes from the wolf just so he can see if it’s ready to pounce and kill him. He’d always rated that sort of death pretty low as far as likelihood is concerned, mauled by a wolf. It sounds like a shit way to die and his heart pounds with the knowledge that it could have happened.

Like. It probably wouldn’t have happened. But it could have.

He snatches his phone up from where it’s charging on the table beside his bed.

“It’s past my bedtime,” Nick says, his voice muffled like he’s got his face pressed into a pillow. He’s never been overly fond of hello.

It immediately helps just to hear someone else’s voice.

“I know, sorry. I just. I think I’ve got a bit of cabin fever. Needed a person real quick.”

“Get out of the house, then, love. Go into town tomorrow, find a farmer’s market, whatever the fuck it is you do out in the country. Go find an _actual_ person.”

“Yeah, might do.” A person. He’d left London because there were too many people, the last thing he supposes he really needs are people. Harry tugs at his lip and sits down at the edge of his bed. “There aren’t any wolves in Ireland, are there?”

“What the fuck are you talking about.”

Harry shakes his head. That was dumb. “Ehm. Nothing.”

He’s too optimistic to have thought he could dodge the subject, because Nick latches on quickly every time Harry goes and says something mildly embarrassing. “Are you going to write a song about the wolves of Ireland? How does that go?”

“Shut up.”

“ _Ohhh the ole wolves of Eire_ ,” Nick crows, affecting this terrible accent. “ _They gave me quite the scare-uh._ ”

Harry smiles in spite of himself. He’s calming down. “I think that’s probably offensive. Not to mention horrendous.”

“Well, I suppose there’s a reason you write the songs and I just play them, popstar.” Harry listens to Nick breathe for so long he thinks Nick may have gone back to sleep until he says, “You doing okay?”

“Yeah. Listen. I’ve got to go.”

Nick laughs. “Yeah, I’m sure you do.” He rings off before Harry can get the chance to, he loves doing that, getting the last word.

A quick google search, _are there wolves in Ireland_ , tell him there are none, haven’t been for centuries, same as England. Only Harry’s pretty sure he wasn’t hallucinating. He listens carefully, but now it seems the wolf has no interest in howling anymore.

He settles into bed, grabbing the book that’s sat on his bedside table for days, left there by a previous occupant, with a bookmark in and all. Harry opens it right at the bookmark, wondering if it’s a placeholder to move forward or if it signifies something important enough to mark it to go back later.

It’s a fucking boring read, which is brilliant, considering how much Harry wants to fall asleep immediately. Irish folklore, dense as hell, older than his nan by the looks of it. He’s dozing off pretty quick until a particular passage catches his attention so quickly it frightens the sleep away.

_“Truly I know,” answers Cass corach; “three daughters of Airitech, of the rear of the Oppressive Company, from the Cave of Cruachan. ‘Tis easier for them to plunder as wolves than as human beings.”_

_“And they trust no one?” says Cailte._

_“They trust only one set.”_

_“What is that set?” asks Cailte._

_“If they were to see harps and lutes with the world’s men, they would trust to them.”_

Harry laughs, mostly humorless, at the vain thought that his lute would conjure a wolf to Ireland for the first time in, like, three hundred years. But it’s a thought.

\--

He escapes the cabin for lunch, having slept in so late he’s missed breakfast. He swaddles up in almost every piece of clothing he owns and walks the bike down the drive until the road is clear enough of the snow that he can hop on it. He bikes into town, stopping off at the restaurant Bobby recommended to him.

It’s nice to be around people but not with people. It’s nice to exist in a place where life happens all around him, but he doesn’t have to dive in. He’s allowed to sit quietly at his table, undisturbed, and just exist.

Then Harry starts to stare, antithetical to his original intention and admittedly pretty rude. He’s pretty used to people staring at him, had his fair share of people who just _watch him_. But he’s not much of a people watcher himself.

It’s just the kid in the corner booth is leaned over a glass of water cupped between both his hands, trying to get at the water tongue-first, struggling a little until he moves to get his mouth around the rim of the glass.

A bloke the size of a mountain delivers him a straw directly into the cup -- not exactly sanitary -- and he slides a pair of folded glasses onto the table with a plate of food. The kid nods at the mountain, slides his glasses on before wrapping his lips around the straw.

The glasses do it for Harry, places him immediately. It’s the kid from the picture -- it’s gotta be Bobby’s son. He’s got dark brown hair though, and rough stubble littering his face. He looks thin and weathered, almost, so much older than Harry expects that he suspects the picture is older than he’d guessed.

They chat for a second, but Harry can’t figure any of it out. Not that he could. He shakes his head at himself. He’s halfway across the room and also not trained in the art of lip reading. He’s also not sure why he’s so fucking interested.

Then the kid grins, big and bright and proud, and it hits Harry like a punch to the chest.

When the mountain moves away, the kid starts inhaling everything on his plate, shoveling pre-cut bits of steak into his mouth like someone’s going to threaten to take it from him at any moment. And he’s using his hands.

The mountain of a man comes back, rests a strong, large hand on the kid’s shoulder, and leans into whisper into his ear. The kid’s eyes find Harry’s immediately, flashing blue and critical, and Harry averts his own. Shit.

He studies his notebook for a while, works out a line or two about blue eyes piercing his heart that he’s not sure about, gets a little stuck on the metaphor. Maybe if he just looks at them again.

He gets the shit scared out of him just as his eyes find their way back over to the kid. He’s got a fork in his hand now, carefully trying to spear a potato wedge with it. He looks frustrated and Harry feels a pull to help him. But he doesn’t, he gets the shit scared out of him instead.

“All right, sir?”

Harry looks up to find the mountain standing over him, relieved to find as big as he is, his face still looks open and kind. He pours more coffee into Harry’s cup even though he hadn’t asked.

“Yes, thank you.” Harry wills his voice to stay steady, considering his heart’s pounding at the fright, his cheeks flushing with being caught.

“You renting Bobby’s cabin out by the wood?” He asks it like he already knows the answer.

“I am.”

“Treating you well?”

“Yes, thank you,” Harry says. Only. It’s really not. “There’s some sort of animal that howls outside the house almost every night. It’s kept me up a few nights.” All of the nights.

Harry gets blinked at for his trouble, the other bloke’s face stunningly impassive, like he hasn’t got a lick of empathy in him. “Likely to be some wild dogs about in the wood, not much to be done about it, unfortunately.”

“Of course, I didn’t mean to imply -- it’s nothing to do with the cabin.” Harry flaps a hand to show just how little he thinks this should be Bobby’s problem.

Harry gets eyed pretty closely, then, like he’s under assessment. He appears to pass. “All right. Well, don’t hesitate to give me a ring if you can’t get Bobby.”

He must be the kid then, not like the kid over in the corner booth, but the one Bobby refers to as _The Kid_ , the one that’s near enough his son but not quite. The two of them don’t look like brothers, but they look like they care for each other. It’s almost kind of ridiculous, Bobby referring to this strong, broad man as The Kid, when he looks nothing like one. Not like his actual son does.

“Thank you, I won’t,” Harry answers. “Hesitate, that is. I will most likely call you.”

“You’re polite,” he says in that way people do when they’re surprised by it. Harry hears that a lot, occupational hazard.

“Kindness shouldn’t be a novelty, it should be a guarantee.”

The mountain smiles, but he doesn’t seem like he’s mocking Harry. “That’s good, you should tweet that.” He moves away, past the kid struggling with his fork, back into the kitchen. Harry drops his eyes again, determined not to get caught watching.

And Harry does tweet it. If only so Nick knows he’s alive.

\--

He locks himself back up for another few days, dedicating forty-eight straight hours to the piercing blue eyes until he’s got something acceptable to show another person. That’s one down, twelve to go.

He plucks through the song a couple of times, recording a few demos on his laptop to send over to Julian for his thoughts. He hears rustling at the back door, footsteps on the back porch, and freezes in the middle of the third go. It’s the goddamn wolf.

He snatches up his phone and moves to the window by the back door. He’s not gonna go out after it, he just wants to snag a picture of it. He peels away the blue gingham curtains ever so slightly, chances too brief a peek to actually see anything before he’s shoving the curtain closed again.

Thank god there’s no one to see him right now, he looks like a fucking idiot. It’s not like the bloody wolf is going to get at him through the window.

He peeks again and the coast really does look clear, at least in the general perimeter.

He wrenches open the door and finds nothing. He ventures out a little further into the cold, his feet freezing on the wooden porch as they shuffle forward. He doesn’t see a damn thing until he turns to go back in. It’s a pair of glasses, seemingly tossed into the fresh snow, surrounded by tracks that lead back to the woods.

Harry quickly runs to get them, lifting his feet high so they don’t spend a lot of time in the snow, and he suspects it makes him look like a goose-stepping twat. He snatches up the glasses and shoots back into the house, slamming and locking the door behind him.

He doesn’t know what to do with them, now he’s got them. And he doesn’t expect anyone to come looking for them either, but they do. In less than twenty-four hours, there’s a knock to Harry’s door, a single, curt knock that pulls him up out of bed pretty quick.

It’s the kid from the restaurant, glasses-less and wide-eyed. He looks cold, or maybe Harry’s just projecting. He’s only got joggers and a threadbare sweater on, his arms stock still at his side.

“Come in,” Harry says, taking a step away from the door to let him through.

His eyes dart around the cabin, seeming to soak everything in as he slowly shuffles inside. He’s not wearing any shoes either, he leaves wet footprints behind him on his way to the kitchen. His eyes catch on the eyeglasses where they sit on the kitchen table.

“These yours?” Harry walks over to pick up the glasses and holds them out for him, careful to let the kid approach him instead of the other way around. He looks about ready to bolt at any moment, shifting tensely from side to side.

He takes a few steps toward Harry, the exact amount necessary to extend his arm fully so only his hand is within Harry’s reach. His fingers brush lightly against Harry’s when he takes them, their roughness tickling Harry enough to send chills up his arm.

He slides the glasses on, though it takes him a couple of tries to get the stems where they belong over his ears with the way his hands shake.

“Thanks,” he says, his voice soft but gritty like his throat’s lined with gravel.

Harry nods. “I’m Harry.”

He frowns and thinks about it for a second, swallows once, before he says clearer, “I’m Niall.”

“Niall.” Harry likes the roll of it on his tongue. “That’s a very Irish name.”

Niall’s eyebrows quirk up, almost like he’s amused. It’s the first bit emotion beyond confusion or anxiety he’s shown since he smiled in the restaurant. Harry likes it on him.

“I am very Irish,” Niall admits.

Harry nods again. “Fair enough.”

Niall doesn't move for the door, just watches Harry closely as his teeth worries at the pad of his thumb. Harry watches him back, shameless this time, once he realizes the more he looks at Niall, the more he wants to know everything about him.

Partially because he’s peculiar, fidgety, a bit shaky with a fork -- but mostly because there’s something in his eyes that pulls Harry in. They’re crystal clear and deep, still as piercing as Harry’s written them to be. They’re unrelenting in a way that makes Harry want to look away first, but he won’t.

“I’m making lunch. If you’re hungry.” Harry wasn’t, but he will now, if Niall wants it.

“Thanks.”

Harry makes quick work of the chicken he’d got delivered yesterday, carefully tossing strips of it to brown in a pan. He’d have liked to marinate it first, but it is what it is. He doesn’t imagine Niall would complain. “This is your dad’s cabin?”

“Yeah. Used to come here a lot, at the start.”

“The start of what?”

Niall shrugs. His eyes wander until his feet start to wander too, and he’s nosing around the cabin like he’s looking for something.

“So you don’t live here anymore?” Harry calls over to him when Niall stops in front of the bed, his eyes on Harry’s guitar and laptop.

“Don’t need it so much anymore.” He picks up the book on Harry’s bedside table briefly before setting it back down.

“Still like to hang out though?” Harry taps at his own temple, meaning Niall’s glasses, when Niall raises his eyebrows in question at him.

Niall’s cheeks flush at the explanation, and he turns his eyes to the floor. “Won’t happen again.”

“It’s fine.” Harry’s surprised to realize that’s true.

He forgoes the peas and corn he was planning to have today in favor of green beans -- they’re longer, easier to eat with your hands -- and he shreds lettuce into far bigger slices than he normally would. Niall keeps touring the cabin, taking what looks like anxious circles until he ends up in the loo.

Harry leans over to see him staring at his own reflection in the mirror, a look on his face so concentrated he almost looks like he’s scowling. He’s running his hand over his jaw, feeling out the light dust of stubble there.

“Lunch is ready,” Harry says, shuffling away so it doesn’t look like he was watching. Niall pads back into the kitchen and stands next to him, looking like he’s awaiting instruction. Bemused, Harry gestures toward the table.

Niall frowns. “Right.”

As soon as Harry sets a plate down in front of him, Niall stuffs a green bean in his mouth before he stops himself with a pained look on his face. “Do you have a fork?”

Harry didn’t bring him one. “You don’t have to. If it makes you uncomfortable. I don’t mind.”

Niall nods, looks relieved in a small way. It’s as close to an acknowledgement of the other day as they’re going to get -- they both know Harry was openly staring at him, having forgotten all manners and decorum.

“I’ve got this mate,” Harry says around the chicken in his mouth, “he’s terrified of spoons, won’t use ‘em.”

Niall squints at him. “M’not scared.”

Harry holds up a placating hand. “I didn’t think you were. Just. We’ve all got different stuff going on.”

Niall doesn’t talk much, but he seems to enjoy listening and Harry seems to have a lot to say. He figures going days and days without a proper conversation with another person might do that to you.

Niall wanders the cabin again like he’s restless, like standing still will do him some great harm. Harry figures he’s got to have the place memorized by now, especially if he lived there, but Niall always seems to find something new to stick his nose into or poke at every time Harry stops washing the dishes long enough to check in on him.

He’s got his fingers resting on the shelf before the lone framed picture of him and Bobby. He makes an aborted move to touch it before he turns suddenly, starts marching towards the front door.

“Ehm. Niall?” Harry turns to turn the sink off and looks back to see he’s stopped Niall in his tracks just before the door. Niall looks like he remembers Harry’s there and it makes sense that Harry’s confused why he’d just walk away.

“I’m sorry,” Niall says, his voice clipped and his head ducked, “I have to go.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’m sorry.” It’s all very abrupt and Harry doesn’t know what to make of it.

Harry also doesn’t realize until after Niall’s gone that he’s left his glasses on the kitchen table.

\--

He sends Nick a text every night, only when he knows Nick’s sleeping -- because the howling’s still keeping him awake -- so he both knows Harry’s alive but he also won’t text him back. Otherwise he keeps his phone turned off. He thought he’d needed a break from people, all of them, just an en masse No More People policy, but he finds Niall doesn’t count. He turns his phone off because doesn’t want to talk to any of the rest of them, he just wants to sit quietly with Niall.

Kindness really shouldn’t be a novelty, but he suspects it’s something more than kindness that keeps him opening is door to Niall every other day.

Niall’s an odd duck, still doesn’t say much, like he’s not always present with Harry even though he’s there. He forgets things too, or so he says, and not things like where’s left his mug. He forgets things like answering questions when Harry asks them -- he tends to communicate with looks or touches -- or that he’s supposed to sit down at the table to eat instead of the floor.

Under no circumstances does Harry ask Niall why he does these things, why he’s on the other side of detached, but still comes around. Because Niall never asks him what he’s doing here, Niall never asks him why he’s hiding or what he’s running from. Niall’s doing him a kindness too.

Niall knocks when Harry’s left the door unlocked for him.

“It’s open,” he calls, but the door doesn’t open for a few moments. He nearly calls again, but eventually it starts to crack open and Niall’s head peeks around the door. He looks a bit blind as he squints and tilts his head up like he’s sniffing at the air.

Niall pads into the kitchen, barefoot and wearing the same sweater and joggers as always, puts his glasses on, and looks over at Harry.

“M’cold,” is the only explanation Harry offers, clearly wrapped up tight in a blanket on the sofa, only his arms poking out to clutch his guitar tight to him.

Niall considers him for a few moments and then sits on the couch next to him. Actually next to him, like nearly on top of him, and that’s the first time he’s done something like that. If they share a couch, Niall sticks to the opposite end, only his feet nearing Harry when he stretches them out.

Harry feels warmer, just from the touch of him. He leans into his side when he realizes Niall will let him.

“Gonna play me something?” Niall asks. It surprises Harry, it often takes him a while before he's willing to say anything, and Harry's got a full question out of him already.

He’s seen Harry fiddle with his guitar, but Harry doesn’t do too much work when Niall’s around. He can’t, really -- he’s too distracted by Niall to put words on a page, to feel anything coherent. But the second Niall’s gone, Harry finds he could write hours about him. He nearly has. Does his best work at night when it’s just him singing with the wolf.

“I can.”

Niall nods. “Please do.”

Niall lets his eyes drift shut when Harry starts to pluck out the light melody, something like peace coloring his features. It suits him.

It’s not a bad tune, it’s not too obviously about Niall. He doesn’t get too specific about the color of his eyes or the sharp cut of his chin. He’s not too obvious when he sings about the secrets Niall keeps, the storm brewing behind his eyes. Harry tells himself that, but he’s not entirely sure if it’s true.

“It’s good,” Niall says when he’s done. He smiles, big and bright and proud, and the sudden force of it leaves Harry feeling shell shocked.

It’s Harry who forgets his words then, until some sense is knocked back into his own head and the power of Niall’s smile releases him. “Thank you. It’s still a bit rough, but we’ll smooth it out when we make the proper demo. See if it’s anything worth keeping.”

“You’re a singer then?”

It’s not vanity that makes Harry feel surprised Niall doesn’t know him, he’s not generally that kind of person. It’s just Niall’s young and his mountain of a friend seemed to know and Bobby knows, so he figures word would get around.

“Yeah.”

“Always wanted to be a singer, when I was a kid,” Niall says. That’s a pleasant surprise.

“Did you ever go for it?”

“Nah.” Niall shrugs it off like he does so many things. Like it never mattered to him in the first place and it doesn’t matter now. But Harry’s had this dream, he knows so many other artists who have had the dream, and it’s not something you just shrug off. It claws at you until you own it and live it or you lose it and the loss scars you for life.

“What stopped you?”

“Things changed,” Niall says, his voice hard.

Everything is half a riddle with Niall, like he’s talking around what he really wants to say. But Harry can’t fault him that, can’t fault Niall to keep things so close to the vest when Harry does the same thing.

Niall softens, though. Eventually. “You feel a lot.”

“I suppose I do,” Harry allows. “Occupational hazard and all.”

Niall frowns like he’s trying to understand it, like he doesn’t know how Harry can feel so much. “That must be hard.”

“I just channel it through the music. Feels safer that way. I know it’s a piece of me I’m letting free, but to everyone else, it’s just a song.”

Harry’s never put that way, he’s never told anyone why music is his one exception. Why he needs to smile his way through everything -- interviews, concerts, meetings -- like nothing’s ever been wrong in his life, like nothing can touch him. But his music, everything happens through his music. Everything is defined by his music, the world spins in his music, his heart beats in his music. It’s the only place Harry lets himself be vulnerable.

He wonders if he could be vulnerable for Niall, if he could crack himself open and trust Niall to look inside and not tell another soul what he finds there. He wonders if that’s cheating, if that’s using Niall because he knows Niall would keep a secret.

There just never seems to be enough time or the right time. Maybe they could have all the time in the world and it’d never be the right time. Maybe Harry needs to tell him _I’ll show you mine if you show me yours_ before he’s willing to take a gamble. But he never asks, and eventually Niall always leaves.

Niall seems to stay for as long as he can -- that what it feels like to Harry, like Niall’s only ever there until he can’t be there anymore, until something’s tugging him away and he has to follow. Every day he seems to be able to stay longer, sometimes up to hours at a time before he’s tugged away.

Every time he goes, Niall leaves his glasses on the kitchen table like a promise.

\--

He’s always feeding Niall, always feels this urge to take care of him. Not because he looks a little pathetic with his unwashed hair and raggedy clothes, not because he gets scared easy or he looks like he gets a good meal once a month. But because Niall is easy, he’s just _there_ , not because he has a need from Harry, but because he wants to be there. It’s easy to give something to someone who expects nothing from you. And Niall seems so particular with his time that the fact he grants Harry full hours at a time feels like a gift.

Harry’s making lunch and Niall’s got the guitar in his lap, his hands placed in the appropriate spots, but his fingers don’t do anything. He frowns down at it, the tips of his fingers lightly skimming the fret to make that familiar soft scratching noise, his right thumb poised over E like he’s about to strum down.

“Do you play?” Harry asks.

Niall’s face looks inscrutable as always when Harry prods too hard about him. “Used to.”

“Will you play me something? Return the favor.”

Niall sets the guitar aside. “Can’t remember how.”

“I can show you again,” Harry offers, giving the pasta a stir before tending to the peppers.

Niall laughs, this loud bark that’s so infectious it’s got Harry grinning instantly. “You’re actually a terrible guitar player.”

Harry knows. He’s only ever been passable, good for simple four chord songs. It’s usually enough. “Yeah, but I’ve got a great smile.”

Niall hums in consideration. “Is that what they say about you?”

“Sometimes.” Harry wonders if he’s said too much, if that’s gone too far, further than he usually lets himself go. He knows he’s got a sardonic streak a mile wide, but this one hits a little closer to home.

_That Harry Styles, he’s got a nice face and a passable voice and the kids love him, but is he a Real Musician?_

“Are you pretty big time, then?” Niall asks.

“I get around.”

Even though the answer is very much yes, Harry’s always felt like a bit of a prat saying it. Though to be honest, underplaying it to people who know exactly who Harry is also makes him look like a prat. Niall doesn't seem to know and Harry doesn't want Niall to look at him the way the rest of the world does.

“What the hell are you doing in Mullingar, then?”

He threw a metaphorical dart at a map of the UK (and Ireland) and went running, technically. It was more of a Google search and a couple of friendly emails exchanged with Bobby, but that's not entirely what Niall's asking about.

“Hard to make something authentic when there are people breathing down your neck. There are just,” Harry says, slowly, setting his knife down to focus. “A lot of expectations. From everyone -- my producers, my friends, my family, my fans. Or people just waiting to see what I do, waiting to judge whether I’m worth their time. Sometimes I just wonder what it would be like without all that. That’s why I’m here, like. To detox. And figure out if it’s worth it.”

Niall nods, understanding. “I know. What it's like to just escape.”

“Yeah?”

“Feels like. Infinite. Like freedom, I guess. Can do anything, go anywhere. You think it'll be hard to detach, but it's not. Hard at first, I guess, but you get used to it. You get used to the fact that you don't mean anything to anyone. In a way that’s like freedom.”

The way Niall says it, he's teetering on the edge of sadness, but he doesn't seem like he's going to fall over. He seems sure of himself, mostly, like he's perfectly fine with it all.

Harry’s not stupid enough to say he wants to throw it all away -- he really rather likes his job, all told -- but he needs perspective, he needs to be grounded. He needs to understand what things mean, what he means to other people, and what they mean to him. For all Harry’s talk of wanting to escape it all, he's scared of meaning nothing.

“S’better that way. When you're alone,” Niall adds like he can sense Harry’s doubt. But he can’t sit here in his dad’s cabin with Harry day in and day out and tell Harry he’d rather be alone.

“You mean something, Niall.”

Niall shrugs. “Who’s left to mean something to?”

Harry turns back to cutting the peppers so he doesn’t have to look at Niall’s face when he says, “Me.”

There’s a silence that makes Harry think he’s said the wrong thing, maybe he should have said Bobby or the tall bloke from the restaurant, but he doesn’t know anything about them, really, and there’s gotta be a reason Niall spends his days with Harry instead of them. It feels selfish, but Harry’s not willing to give it up.

Then he feels Niall press up to his back, his hands resting gently on Harry’s hips, having moved so quietly Harry didn’t notice. It’s a level of intimacy Harry hasn’t gotten from him before, and he relishes it. Niall leans over his shoulder and inhales. Harry doesn’t know if he’s smelling the food or him, but either way it sets a shiver running down his spine and makes him go soft.

The knife slips in his hand when he starts to feel boneless with Niall’s warmth pressed against him, and he slices a neat line down his index finger, like he’s connected his first and second knuckle with an ugly red string.

“Fuck,” Harry hisses, pressing his lips to the cut. It didn’t look too deep, stings more than anything.

Niall pulls Harry’s finger over to his own lips, lathes his tongue over the cut to soak up the blood. His eyes drift shut like he’s pleased. Harry’s breath catches in his chest, but he tries to stay stock still, sure Niall will run the second he realizes what he’s doing.

It’s meant to be strange, it’s meant to be unnatural, but Harry lets it happen, staring dazed at Niall until Niall seems to catch himself and drops Harry’s hand like it’s burned him. They stand in silence, panting at each other like they’ve just done something heavier than reality.

Harry should really be expecting it when Niall says, “I have to go,” though his voice is deep and rough like Harry’s not heard it before.

“Where do you go?”

Niall doesn’t answer. Harry’s not sure he deserves an answer at this point anyway. Niall owes him nothing, technically, but Harry can’t stop himself from wanting everything from him. He doesn’t want Niall to think it’s better alone.

“But you’ll come back?” Harry insists, because this doesn’t feel like the other times. There’s never been this level of tension in the air.

Niall doesn’t nod, but his brows furrow. “I think you pull me back.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but the way he says it doesn’t make Harry think Niall would call that a positive.

“Do you want me to?” Harry asks.

“I don’t know.” He looks scared, open, vulnerable. There’s something almost desperate about him, like he’s pleading with Harry to let him go or make him stay. Harry doesn’t know which, he doesn’t have a fucking clue.

Niall tries to go and Harry takes a risk. He catches Niall’s hand and tugs him back. He moves slowly, so as not to spook him, his right hand moving carefully to his face to tilt him up to catch Harry’s lips. Niall opens up to him instinctively, like this isn’t something he has trouble remembering.

He’s not sure if he can taste his blood in Niall’s mouth or if he’s just imagining it’s there.

Niall’s hands find Harry’s hips and grips them tight enough to hurt. He backs Harry into the counter to press flush against him, nibbling at Harry’s bottom lip for too brief a moment before he lazily trails his lips down Harry’s neck. Each press of his lips is like a shock to Harry’s skin.

His kisses start to grow rougher, nips turn to bites until Niall sinks his teeth into the crook of Harry’s neck. It’s hard, but not enough to break the skin, just hard enough leave a mark. Harry gasps and groans, straddling pleasure and pain, and that’s what finally spooks Niall.

He turns, his hands balled in tight fists by his side, and he’s out the door before Harry can even blink, let alone ask him to stay.

Niall doesn’t leave his glasses behind.

\--

Harry can’t sleep, not with the phantom press of Niall’s lips against his, not with the night full of howling that sounds more like an invitation than a complaint nowadays. The moment Harry thinks to himself the wolf might be calling for Harry is the moment he thinks he might need some help.

There’s a pounding on his door bright and early, and Harry drops the book he still keeps on his bedside table on the floor. He practically runs to yank it open, though it doesn’t sound like Niall’s usual knock.

That’s because it’s not Niall. It’s the mountain of a man from the restaurant who knows Niall and he presses inside the cabin without being asked in. He noses around too, a little too much like Niall would, even though it really is an open floor plan cabin. He’s incapable of hiding anything. Not that he’s got anything to hide. Or anyone.

“Hi, I'm Harry,” he says to make a point.

“Niall.”

Harry quirks his eyebrows up. “He's not here.”

He opens the bathroom door, apparently just in case. “No, my name is also Niall.”

“Well, that's. Confusing.”

His face grows stony like Harry’s said something wrong. “He calls me Bressie. When he remembers to.”

Half-riddles must run in the near enough family.

Bressie heads for the back door and Harry follows him closely. Bressie lifts up the seat of the bench that Harry usually leaves the bicycle leaned against and peers inside. Harry looks too, surprised to see Niall’s customary jumper and joggers neatly folded inside, his glasses resting on top.

Bressie looks out at the wood, like it’s going to provide him some sort of answer. But Harry isn’t even sure he knows what the questions are. He doesn’t know what the clothes mean, he doesn’t know what Bressie’s doing here, he doesn’t know a damn thing.

“Is Niall okay?”

Bressie grunts, moving back inside the cabin and shutting the cold out behind them. “Haven’t seen him in days.”

“He was just here yesterday.”

Bressie freezes. “What did you say to him?”

“Nothing.” He didn’t say anything so much as he kissed him, wanted to claim part of Niall as his own, trading a piece of himself for a piece of Niall.

It’s technically not a lie, but Bressie seems to read it in his face. As good as Harry is about hiding things away, about wearing a mask, there’s something about Niall that makes him transparent.

“You mix him up,” Bressie says, like an accusation.

“I don’t mean to.”

“Well, you do. I think you should leave well enough alone.”

“I don’t think he wants me to.” Harry’s got his mind on Niall’s hesitation, how he didn’t say no when Harry asked him if he should pull him back. He knows he wants to be enough for Niall, whatever it is that Niall needs. He knows that much.

Bressie’s shaking his head. He doesn’t look angry, doesn’t look threatening, which honestly doesn’t help the tension of the situation. He almost seems to pity Harry.

“He doesn’t understand. The rest of us, we know you’re not meant to stay here.”

The guilt sits heavy in his stomach like it does when he knows he’s done something wrong. He has crossed a line with Niall he shouldn’t have, he’s diving into something he doesn’t understand.

Niall’s got this life Harry doesn’t comprehend, that Harry doesn’t know how to fit himself into or if he’s even allowed to fit himself into it. He doesn’t know if he’d say yes if Niall asked him to stay.

“Niall’s got his life and you’ve got yours. They don’t match, Harry.”

Harry doesn’t want it to be true. But Harry also suspects he'd be right if he said Niall wasn't like other boys. That he wasn't like anyone else. When Harry had come here to escape from everything he's ever known, he didn't imagine this is what he'd find. Someone like Niall, someone impossible.

Harry asks the question that’s been sitting on the edge of his tongue for weeks, somehow too wild to speak out loud but too necessary to keep silent. “What is he?”

“I’m asking you to leave it alone, Harry. For his sake. And yours.”

He rests one of his large hands on Harry’s shoulder, manages to press sincerity into the simple touch. Harry trusts that he's got Niall's best interests at heart, even though he can't possibly know what they have together. He couldn't leave it alone, not now.

Not when Harry hears a howling every night, full of a longing he feels so deep inside him, he’s written an album about it, so deep it rattles his bones.

\--

He finished his first pass at the album four days ago, but he hasn’t left yet. There’s one unwritten song left for it, a single piece that feels missing. He needs Niall to come back to show him what it is. He paces back and forth between the front windows and the back windows, looking out at the drive and the wood, looking for any trace of anybody. Or just any trace of him.

He went back into the village yesterday, looked for Niall at Bressie’s restaurant. He was greeted with a somber shake of his head from Bressie, treated to a cup of coffee, and sent on his way.

That wasn’t supposed to be the end of it. Harry wasn’t supposed to get a small taste of Niall only to scare him off. He doesn’t let things get dangled in front of him and then let them get yanked away. That’s not the kind of person he is.

The rest of his life is dangling in front of him as well, his third album sitting near complete in his laptop waiting to have something done with it. And if Niall’s not coming back, there’s nothing keeping him here. There’s nothing to pull him back to Mullingar.

When the heat breaks, that feels like as much of a sign as Harry can get. The cabin is forcing him out, reclaiming its space in the name of winter. At least the pacing seems to serve a point now, heating up his skin some where he’s wrapped up under two blankets with three pairs of socks on.

“Mr. Horan -- Bobby -- it’s Harry. Harry Styles. I’m renting your cabin? Sorry to call so late. I just. I think the heat’s gone out or something, I’m not really sure. It’s really really cold. If you could give me a call back... that’d be great.”

He rings off, eyes Bressie’s number on the fridge, but doesn’t call it. He won’t need to, if he just leaves tomorrow.

He packs his suitcases before he lets himself ring Nick.

“All right, popstar?” Nick says, casual-like, and that’s how Harry knows he’s worried.

Harry doesn’t know how to answer that, so he doesn’t. “Think I need to come home.”

“Then come home.” He says it like it’s that easy. Shouldn’t it be that easy?

“Am I an idiot for coming here?”

Nick hums. “Did you get what you came for?”

“More than I thought I would.”

“Then you’re not an idiot. As much as it pains me to say.”

He flumps down onto his bed, rolling himself in as many blankets as he can, still feeling like an idiot. If Nick knew the whole story. He doesn’t think Nick would understand the whole story, but he guesses he’s sort of banking on that. His new album is the whole story. He just needs the final track.

“Not even a pity chuckle, babe? Now I know something’s wrong.”

“I’m fine,” Harry lies. “I’ll see you soon, okay? Give you a ring when I’m home.” He has the last word.

He knows fuck all about fires, so he leaves off messing with the fireplace -- it’s not a flip-the-switch one like the one back home. All he’s got are about six candles. They’re multi-wick, so at least he’s got that going for him, but it’s not as though he can leave those burning overnight. And they mostly just smell good.

The howling doesn’t keep him up, because the howling never comes. He’s sure it’s just the frigid air that steals sleep from him, makes him shiver. He tries to tell himself he isn’t missing anything more than heat.

Exhaustion takes him in the end, sometime before dawn, and he wakes warmer than he should be. Harry turns his face into his pillow to keep from screaming in fright, slowly turning back to look over at the wolf when he’s calmed himself down. It’s curled up against Harry’s stomach, head resting gently on its forelegs like a dog might, sharing its radiating heat with Harry.

The wolf stirs anyway, sensing Harry shift awake. Its head snaps up before it throws itself off Harry’s bed without even looking back at him.

“Wait.” Harry throws his blankets off him. “Niall, wait.”

The wolf turns back, tilting its head and watching Harry critically with its piercing blue eyes, all at once too familiar and too foreign to Harry.

“Niall, please.”

The wolf seems to take pity on him.

Niall comes back to him, slowly, shuddering and shifting until he’s a person again, curled and shaking on the floor. It’s terrifying, watching the change, like something out of Harry’s worst nightmares. Niall doesn’t look like he’s in pain, as his body is ripped apart and pressed back together and that’s only some small relief.

Harry reaches for him, but he snaps violently, an unnatural growling humming out from his chest. Harry stays put, hands to himself, until Niall’s blue eyes soften, until his arms look like they’re threatening to give out under him. He gathers Niall up in his arms and holds him until he stops shaking.

“Hey, Niall. It’s Harry.” He repeats their names over and over, softly running his hands through Niall’s hair and down around his face. He repeats it so Niall knows who he is, knows who Harry is, knows they’re here together. So Niall won’t forget and the recognition will find its way back to Niall’s eyes.

“Harry,” he croaks eventually, his hand snaking out to press against his chest.

“Hey. Hey, Niall.” He covers Niall’s hand with one of his own. “You came back to me.”

Niall turns his head into Harry’s chest and grunts at him in a way that sounds like assent. Harry lets his free hand wrapped around Niall’s back trail up and down his warm, bare skin. What little he sees of it has a few scars, small scratches still not healed, patches of dirt. Mementos of his second life that he can hide under his clothes.

“Can you sit up?”

Niall nods, so Harry gently untangles himself from Niall and runs back to the bench on the back porch. Harry feels the cold clutch desperately to him now that he's no longer wrapped around Niall. He quickly retrieves Niall's clothes and glasses and shuts out the cold again, though he's not sure it makes much of a difference with the broken heat. He’ll be warm with Niall.

Niall's laying where Harry left him, curled in on himself and shaking on the floor by his bed. When Harry holds his clothes up for him, Niall nods. He carefully dresses Niall, certain his hands aren't up for the job, and all the while Niall watches him closely, only taking his eyes off Harry when the jumper goes over his head.

He hands Niall his glasses, but Harry’s unsure if he really needs them. If he can see just fine, but the glasses make him feel human. Niall slides them on and he looks complete.

Harry settles down next to him, pressing into his side not just for his warmth. They sit with each other, silent and as comfortable as they can be with the massive elephant in the room, for what feels like hours before Harry can’t leave it alone.

“How do you do that?”

Niall makes a dismissive face. “Does it matter?”

“I guess not,” Harry admits, even though he’s desperate to know. He’s desperate for anything from Niall, answers, attention, time, care. He wants it all.

Niall nods off to his packed cases sitting out by the bed. “You leaving?”

“I don’t know.” He doesn’t know, not with Niall next to him again. He understands what it would mean to give everything else up, and he doesn’t think he could do that, not permanently.

“You should. I know I can’t keep you,” Niall says firmly. “I do know that.”

“Because of my job?” He could take breaks, he has time at home. He’d come back for Niall, same as he would any other member of his family.

“Because I am what I am.” Something other than human, something wild. Someone who can’t stay with Harry for more than a few hours. But he does stay with Harry when he can.

“You said I bring you back.”

Niall shakes his head, there’s something sad in how slow he goes. “But you shouldn’t.”

He knows now. He knows Niall doesn’t want to be brought back, or he’s scared to be. He could have spent years like this, something other than human.

“Niall,” he whispers.

“You can’t ask that of me.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not a choice. Sometimes I can find my way back, most days I lose the battle.”

“The battle against the wolf?”

“No. This isn't who I am anymore. I'm playing at being a person. I don't turn into a wolf, I turn into this.”

He ducks his head like he's ashamed of it, and that's the last thing Harry wants. He tilts Niall's head back up just to see his eyes.

“If I pull you back, you can stay this way. You can stay a person.”

Niall shakes his head. “People are hard. Being a person is hard.”

“It is,” Harry allows. “But I think it’s necessary. And people are necessary.”

He realizes that, that being a person is hard, being who he is is hard, but it's never been anything but what he's really needed and wanted. He's needed to give it all up to realize that, but he knows now.

“Not for me. I've tried. I've tried so hard for you. For Bressie. For my family. It doesn't work, and it's cruel to make them think I can come back to them.”

Niall looks devastated, repeating something that sounds like he's told himself a thousand times over. He must be used to the sacrifices he's made to have the life he has, the life that he wants, or at least the one that he needs.

“It's better this way,” Niall says. “It’s easier.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s right.” It's a weak argument and they both know it.

“This isn’t anything I haven’t heard before, Harry.” His face grows frustrated. “You didn't -- you're supposed to be safe, you're supposed to be different.”

Harry's supposed to keep his mouth shut, not ask the hard questions. He's supposed to let Niall be, let him live the life he wants and needs. If that's the life he wants to lead, then Harry can't argue. Because he'd ask the same of anyone else, he'd ask they respect that he knows what he needs. That's what they do for each other.

“You said I pull you back.”

Niall looks wary. “You do.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t hesitate.

“You’ll pull me back too. If I can't ask you to stay, I can ask you not to forget me.”

Niall grabs both of Harry's hands and squeezes them for a moment before letting them go, pressing into them like he wants to leave his intentions burned in Harry's skin. “I can't forget you. Even when I'm gone, I can't forget you.”

That's what Harry wants to hear. Niall loses so much of himself, it's selfish of Harry to ask him to keep Harry even through all of it. But they both seem to want it so bad.

“Then we’ll keep pulling each other in. I'll find you when I can, you find me when you can. If that's all we can ask for.”

Niall considers him for the longest time, searching Harry's eyes like he might find more truths there, or like he's looking for lies.

“Okay,” he says when he doesn't seem to find any.

“Okay.”

Niall goes still, his fingers curling into fists so slowly Harry might not have noticed if he wasn’t so in tune to Niall.

“You have to go?” Harry guesses.

“Yeah.” But he looks like he regrets it.

Harry kisses him like he's staking his claim, he's leaving Niall with something to remember him by. Harry kisses him so he has his own part of Niall to remember him with, the way his lips move perfectly against his own, the way Niall kisses like he means to devour.

“Then go.”

They rise together, Harry walks him to the door, determined to see him go now that he knows what Niall gets up to when he's gone. Now that he has to say a proper goodbye.

Niall pulls off the jumper first before sliding the joggers off. He folds them carefully and sets them on the kitchen table. He slides off the glasses, folding them up too and pressing them into Harry’s hand. He closes Harry’s fingers around them. It feels like a promise.

He sinks down onto his knees and Harry kneels with him. Niall kisses him this time, aggressively, desperately. None of it feels like enough, the sensation of Niall’s tongue against his, Niall’s warm skin heating Harry’s fingers where they’re pressed into his neck, the way they move easily with each other like they intrinsically know what they need. Harry doesn’t get his fill.

Niall shivers, shuddering out ragged breaths until he’s gone and a different beast stands before Harry. The wolf circles Harry once before it moves to the door, whining to let go, asking for freedom.

It bolts out the cabin the second Harry opens the door, circling around the house out of sight, no doubt headed to the wood. Harry doesn't wait for him or go after him. He closes the door and listens for his call, the howling that says he's thinking of Harry

Harry will pull him back when he can.

\----

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! If you need me, I am [here.](http://wickershire.tumblr.com/post/136975206798/title-a-rush-inside-i-cant-control-rating)


End file.
